Movie notes: ‘Bloody Valentine’ scared of critics

Jaime King (left) and Megan Boone appear moderately scared in ‘My Bloody Valentine 3D,’ which will open Friday without being screened in advance for critics.

Another week, another horror movie they won’t show us. As I predicted, “My Bloody Valentine 3D,” the remake of the 1981 cult flick, will open Friday without being screened in advance for critics.

Last week, “Unborn” also played hide-n-seek, and with good reason. In his one-jalapeño follow-up review, Express-News film critic Larry Ratliff said its alleged frights were funny instead of scary. For a horror flick, that’s never a good sign.

One reason the studio, Lionsgate Entertainment, may want to stifle opening-day reviews is to keep critics from debunking its split-personality marketing campaign. Read the plot synopsis on the Lionsgate site after seeing the TV ad, and you’d think they’re talking about two different movies.

Here’s the official take from the studio:

“Ten years ago, a tragedy changed the town of Harmony forever. Tom Hanniger, an inexperienced coal miner, caused an accident in the tunnels that trapped and killed five men and sent the only survivor, Harry Warden, into a permanent coma. But Harry Warden wanted revenge. Exactly one year later, on Valentine’s Day, he woke up…and brutally murdered 22 people with a pickaxe before being killed.

Ten years later, Tom Hanniger returns to Harmony on Valentine’s Day, still haunted by the deaths he caused. Struggling to make amends with his past, he grapples with unresolved feelings for his ex-girlfriend, Sarah, who is now married to his best friend, Axel, the town sheriff. But tonight, after years of peace, something from Harmony’s dark past has returned. Wearing a miner’s mask and armed with a pickaxe, an unstoppable killer is on the loose. And as his footsteps come ever closer, Tom, Sarah and Axel realize in terror that it just might be Harry Warden who’s come back to claim them…”

Yikes.

The TV ad, however, makes it look like a horror-comedy date movie, sort of like the “Scream” movies, or maybe a trip through the circus funhouse. The words “SEX…VIOLENCE…SCARES…FUN…TERROR” are intercut with the scenes of the scary miner guy throwing his axe into a crowded movie theater and what appears to be real fire spewing from the screen. It ends with a barely-clad hot young thing saying, “Kinda romantic in a sick kinda way” as she lights her cigarette.

So which is it? My guess is with the official synopsis. This wouldn’t be the first movie a studio tried to market under false or misleading pretenses. So take a date — if you dare!